Author's Notes: Evening, all! Well, you may have noticed that I didn't upload last week, because - as predicted (and indeed warned), real life got in the way and it just wasn't possible. But eventually I got this chapter sorted, and I'm a little bit ahead of myself again, so I've decided to treat you a day early. Yet again I haven't replied to all reviews, I know, but this will be rectified. You have no idea how much I cherish all the support.
Massive thanks to riftintime for once again saving my arse!
Chapter Fourteen
"So what's he told you?"
Ianto started at the voice in his ear, almost dropping the palm-sized metallic pebble he'd been fiddling with. He placed it gingerly back upon the steel tabletop where he'd found it, and turned to find four eager faces staring directly at him. Toshiko, who had asked the quiet but insistent question, stood before him with her arms folded, while the others remained in their seats with their attentions diverted entirely from their work. Ianto waited for the distant snap of Jack's office door before replying:
"About what?"
"Himself!" Suzie replied with a hint of exasperation. Ianto gave them all a sweeping frown.
"Nothing."
"Come off it, you're a copper, you're trained to ask questions" Owen interrupted, rolling his eyes.
"I think you know Captain Harkness well enough to be aware that he doesn't answer questions" Ianto replied, folding his own arms in a defensive gesture. "Why are you asking me? I've been here a week. You must know plenty about him."
"Bugger all" Gwen stated, causing the others to nod in agreement. "Not who he is, not where he comes from... nothing. Drives me crazy."
"Except that he's gay" Owen added casually, to which Toshiko tutted.
"He's not" she replied, shaking her head. "I've watched him in action. He'll shag anything if it's gorgeous enough."
"I'm sorry, but period military is not the dress code of a straight man" Owen said, raising his hands. "He's gay."
Ianto watched his colleagues squabble over their boss' sexuality with no small degree of annoyance, until the pettiness of the conversation drove him to intervene.
"Look, I don't care" he announced, cutting through their chatter.
"What, you're not in the least bit curious?" Suzie scoffed, as all attention was once again turned to Ianto.
"About who or what he's sexually attracted to? No" Ianto replied with an eye-roll of his own.
"About him in general" Gwen clarified, her hands spreading in a helpless gesture. "He must have his reasons for keeping everything a secret..."
"All this technology and you can't just look him up?" Ianto asked with a shrug.
"Yeah, because we hadn't thought of that" Owen muttered. Ianto pretended not to hear him.
"No official records of a Jack or even John Harkness existing at any point during the last fifty years" Toshiko stated. "There's no such person."
"Maybe his identity is classified" Ianto suggested.
"Doesn't stop us wanting to know why, or who he is" Suzie said in a low, conspiratorial voice, strolling away from her desk and towards one of the as-yet-unexplored doors.
Ianto watched her leave, vaguely aware of his other colleagues moving around him; apparently the conversation was over. But, irritating as the concept was, Ianto couldn't deny to himself that he was curious about Captain Jack Harkness. All of his dislike for the man couldn't cloud the fact that he'd intrigued Ianto from day one, because even with all of his investigative training and natural intuition, Jack's behaviour and sometimes dramatic changes in mood still drew up question marks. He idly wondered if those glimpses of sympathy – perhaps even empathy – he'd seen were more even than his colleagues had witnessed in all their time with him, but dismissed the thought immediately. How a man could efficiently lead such a small, clearly close-knit team without telling them a single thing about himself, Ianto couldn't fathom.
"Where's my favourite Jones in the whole of Wales?" Jack bellowed across the Hub, striding purposefully towards his staff with his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbow and a sheen of sweat on his brow. Ianto huffed in annoyance – his natural reaction to Jack's presence, it seemed – and turned on the high stool which Gwen had found for him. She had been showing him Torchwood's computer system; it was beyond intricate, and Ianto was stunned. Not only was it a seemingly endless electronic resource, but it also controlled everything in the Hub, including the security systems. Gwen had just quietly offered to show Ianto a few of the more recent alien files, and he'd been hesitating in his response when Jack hailed him. The interruption left a small part of him oddly relieved.
"Yes, Captain?" Ianto responded with as much condescension as he could muster, making Jack – predictably – grin. The man made it very difficult for Ianto to behave as professionally as he would normally be inclined to do, but Jack only seemed to find his lack of respect amusing.
"Now now, Detective Inspector, do I need to teach you a lesson about insubordination? You don't want to know what my punishment techniques entail... or maybe you do?"
Ianto heard Gwen snort with laughter beside him, and watched as Jack's gaze swept dramatically over his body. He surprised himself by realising that he was already becoming immune to Jack's lechery, or at least the over-the-top act thereof.
"What exactly is it that you want, sir?" he replied evenly, raising himself to full height, which was barely an inch off Jack's. The Captain's smile didn't falter as he let his flirtation go, and handed Ianto a worn manilla file.
"I have your proof" he replied, indicating that Ianto open the folder. He did so, and found himself staring at an elaborate sketch of a wiry, six-legged creature with delicate pincers tipping four of its limbs, drawn upon coarse, sepia paper. Scribbled in one corner was an illegible signature, next to the numbers '1912'.
"What's this?"
"Torchwood called it a Sajuiin. This is the only record we have of it, with just a handful of notes, but something we can glean from this is that the creature left two victims in 1912 drained of spinal fluids and bone marrow. According to this" Jack paused to shake a written report out from behind the drawing, laying it on top and pointing to the beautiful cursive handwriting, "Torchwood's medic at the time opened up the skull to find the brain withered and dehydrated, completely dry, when the victim had only been dead for a matter of hours. He also discovered that while all of the organs were intact, all of the large bones were hollow and brittle, thanks to having been emptied by this alien."
"You think this is what we're looking at with Tucker's case?" Gwen asked, turning from her computer to join in the conversation.
"Quite possibly" Jack replied with a nod. "It's been over sixty years, but maybe another Sajuiin has slipped through looking for a hit."
Ianto stared down at the paper in his hands, shifting the written report aside once more to take another long look at the drawing. It brought back memories of a book that he was fascinated by in primary school, one filled with seventeenth century sketches of fantastical animals drawn by early visitors to The Americas, each more ridiculous than the last. To the Brits who would never know better, the images must have appeared frightening and beautiful, Ianto always thought. But Ianto was a grown, educated man, and looking at the image before him gave him a sense of total incredulity. Surely even Jack couldn't place all of his faith in one single, aged image.
"I still think this could be an ordinary attack" he said, closing the file. There was something on the edge of his mind, something other than just the doubt, which felt familiar and crucial. "I want to talk to anybody else who might have been at the same pub at the same time last night."
Jack sighed, his tight expression clearly intended to ward Ianto off, which only made him more determined.
"You want us to hold off the post mortem until you've finished your little investigation?" Jack drawled in a mocking tone. Ianto briefly glanced at the still-pink mark on Jack's jaw where his knuckled had impacted the bone, and wondered how a matching bruise on the other side would look.
"Yes" he replied. "Give me an hour to prove to you that you're jumping to conclusions."
Jack plucked the file from Ianto's hands and held it out towards Owen whilst maintaining eye contact with the DI.
"Okay, you've got an hour" he said in a low tone laced with warning. "Not a minute more. And when you come back with your tail between your legs, maybe you'll let us get on with our jobs?"
Jack left the question open, turning on his heel and striding back towards his office. Ianto's gaze followed his broad back until Owen caught his eye, smirking with the file in hand as he walked towards the mortuary. Something blunt nudged Ianto's hip and he found Gwen grinning up at him, one eyebrow twitching northwards.
"For somebody who supposedly knows nothing about him, you're really good at pushing his buttons" she murmured with approval, and perhaps a dash of implication which Ianto couldn't quite place. Perhaps he was imagining it.
"Just trying to do my job" Ianto replied, patting his pocket to confirm the placement of his notepad, and stretching his limbs as he prepared to find his way back to sunlight. Well, daylight, at least.
"So you're not trying to wind him up?" Gwen asked, her fiendish smile not wavering for a moment. Ianto, to his own surprise, found himself smiling back.
"No; that's a bonus."
Gwen's laughter followed him as he mounted the steps.
After quickly liaising with the police via the ever-helpful PC Davidson, Ianto made his way to the pub where John Tucker had enjoyed his last drink, silently bemoaning the fact that his allotted hour would be severely stretched by the fact that he was forced to walk everywhere, since he had still not been offered the use of any kind of transport. The pub was as dingy as he'd expected, inhabiting a handful of mid-afternoon patrons who looked as if they may have been born on the very seats they now occupied. Drawing in a breath, Ianto approached the bar and moved to place his hands upon the wooden counter-top, before deciding against it and reaching for the new/old ID in his jacket pocket.
"Excuse me" he hailed the wretched-looking barman who shuffled towards Ianto with a glare of disdain. "DI Ianto Jones" he introduced himself, hesitating a moment before he added "Special Ops with the South Wales constabulary. Mind if I have a word?"
The barman simply shrugged, which Ianto took to mean the affirmative.
"It concerns the incident which occurred on West Bute Street yesterday evening. I've been informed that the victim was last seen in this pub before the attack took place. Were you here yesterday evening, Mr...?"
"Sherman. Evan Sherman" the man replied in a low, disinterested voice, showing a flash of brownish teeth as he spoke. "Aye, I was 'ere. So was this lot." He made a sweeping gesture towards the men Ianto had rightly assumed were regulars. "That Tucker lad was shouting his mouth off, he was. Asking for trouble. I'm not one for sport myself, but he came in with 'is Cardiff scarf and started going on about the game... so of course, the minute somebody wearing Swansea colours walks in, he was all over 'im."
Ianto placed one hand on the bar and leaned closer, no longer caring for the state of the wooden surface as his other hand reached for the notepad in his pocket. A thrill shot through him, tingling through the tips of his fingers, as his natural passion for the job forced adrenaline through his veins.
"He drew the Swansea fan into an argument?" he asked, flipping his book to a fresh page and beginning to scribble in shorthand.
"Aye" Sherman replied, making a slow-motion show of picking his nose. Ianto fought against the urge to grimace. "Kept baiting the poor bugger. He's an alright sort... bit simple, you know the type, and he kept his cool with Tucker until the stupid sod challenged him to a fight. They'd both had five too many Brains' by then, 'course, and Eugene was drunk enough to take Tucker up on the offer. I told 'em to take it outside, neither of 'em came back in, and next thing I know, Tucker's dead."
"Eugene...?" Ianto prompted, furiously writing up his notes.
"Jones, I think 'is name is. Young lad, innocent as anything; a good 'un by all accounts. He ain't capable of killing another man, if that's what you're thinking."
You'd be surprised what a person is capable of, Ianto thought to himself. He said nothing, but offered an impassive gaze and nodded curtly to Sherman, disinclined to shake his hand for hygiene reasons.
"Thank you, Mr. Sherman. You've been extremely helpful."
Sherman shrugged once more and Ianto left the pub, gratefully sucking in fresh air as he did so. Thinking over the conversation, he found himself wandering towards the crime scene once more. The pavement was scrubbed clean, as if nothing had ever happened, and Ianto leaned against the wall as he thought the whole thing over. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine how the fight might have transpired; slurred but passionate words about their opposing teams easily turning physical, violent, Jones shoving Tucker against the bricks, perhaps? Maybe a screw or a nail was poking through the mortar, sharp enough to pierce through Tucker's spinal cord?
Ianto shook his head, sighing through his nose. No. He was clutching at straws, now. He would have had the contusions Owen mentioned had there been an actual fight, and the entry wound wasn't the right size or shape for something pointed. No, there was something else... something lingering at the edges of his mind, and if he could just reach it...
Ianto shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, frustrated, and there it was. Images rushed into his mind as he fingered the keys that had been returned to him by Gwen earlier in the day; keys which were of no use to him currently, but were an enormous comfort simply to keep close. And now, they were a clue.
Pulling the bunch from his pocket, Ianto opened his eyes and singled out the brass Yale key to his flat, gazing at it from every angle. He remembered now; a case from a little over three years ago, in which a man had used his keys to defend from a mugger, holding the long, serrated tool between his fingers and stabbing his attacker in the back after he'd managed to shove him to the ground. The impact was so forceful that the zig-zag-shaped wound remained perfectly preserved between the vertebrae of his spine – just like with Tucker – and the mugger had died long before he could lose enough blood to do so otherwise.
Ianto smiled, despite the murderous circumstances, and he couldn't bring himself to feel guilty. It all slotted together beautifully, and best of all, it proved Jack Harkness wrong. Ianto had more than enough faith in his own abilities as a DI to extract the truth from Eugene Jones but first, he needed to find him... and by returning to the Hub and using the base's technology to do so, Ianto could kill two birds with one stone and use the opportunity to inform Jack of how wrong he was.